“I simply gave her my address in Washington—at my room, you understand, Perk—I wanted her to write to me later on so we could know how they both came out after that nasty squeeze play. Not a whisper what line of business we followed and I asked her as a particular favor not to let a single soul know who the two parties were to whom she and her boy owed their narrow escape from being trapped in that burning house. She said the name would never pass her lips and that she would write, after something she was bound to accomplish had been put through. Of course I couldn’t even give more than a guess what that is, only she seemed dreadfully in earnest and I reckon it might be a reconciliation with her husband, Adrian’s father.”
Perk nodded his head solemnly.
“Huh! mebbe so, Jack, mebbe so, lots o’ that sort o’ trouble goin’ ’round these days, seems like. Now I wonder if you thought to ask what her name might be?”
“Queer that I didn’t think to do that, partner,” Jack told him with a little laugh. “I reckon I must have been a little absent-minded but that’s nothing to us for chances are we’ll never meet the lady again. How about you and the boy?”
“He told me his name, Jack, when he gave me this little picture he happened to have in his pocket—you see on the back it’s got written, I guess by his Mom herself: ‘Adrian, at six’; but tarnation take the luck if I ain’t jest plumb forgot the last name he told me—somethin’ like Burnham or Barnard—begins with a B, I’m dead sure—Buster, Bramley—Buttons—well, for the love o’ mike I can’t strike oil but it’ll come back, given a little time.”
“And I can see plain enough if it keeps on skipping you it’s bound to keep you busy guessing right along,” Jack was saying, for only too well did he know this little weakness on the part of his comrade. Perk was bound to keep on pounding away at that puzzle day and night, giving himself no rest until he either solved the riddle or else some one told him the answer—left to himself he would never give up trying.
“Like as not, buddy,” replied Perk, frowning darkly; “seems I’m gettin’ up a tree every little while—never could remember names worth a cent but I don’t forget faces, you understand.”
“And then too, you’re a great hand for remembering to hear the first sound of the dinner bell,” said Jack with a chuckle.
“I sure am some punkins ’bout that,” admitted the amiable Perk with one of his goodnatured grins spreading over his homely face.
“What’s the program after we’ve cleaned up this mess, eh partner?” inquired Jack, who doubtless could make a good guess from previous experience as to what his companion’s answer was apt to be, but for once he counted without his host.